In case you are 45 or above and have a sales job, then there are chances that you have elevated risk for heart disease and stroke in comparison to workers in management and professional positions. Same applies to people working in office support or service-linked jobs.

For better understanding of how cardiovascular disease risk is linked to profession, CDC researchers carried out a study by including 5,566 employed black and white men and women belonging to age group 45 years and above. The findings were presented by them this week at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology/Lifestyle 2016 meeting, in Phoenix, Arizona.

The researchers studied seven modifiable risk factors dubbed as ‘Life's Simple 7’ by the American Heart Association and categorized workers as either ‘ideal’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘poor’. The seven factors associated with heart disease and stroke risk included smoking, physical activity, blood pressure, fasting glucose level, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, and diet.

Though 88% of the study participants don’t smoke and 78% possessed healthy blood sugar levels, 41% workers didn't achieve ‘ideal cardiovascular health’ in terms of other main measures, such as cholesterol, blood pressure, and some lifestyle factors.

Workers obtained top scores when without medication assistance, their blood pressure readings were below 120/80 mm Hg, total cholesterol was under 200 mg/dL, and/or blood glucose was under 100 mg/dL while fasting or 140 when not fasting. A non-smoker with a BMI in the normal weight range and indulged in severe, break-a-sweat activity four or more times per week also received high marks.

The researchers discovered that workers in management and professional roles surpassed overall. They possessed better ideal blood pressures and BMIs, and were probably non-smokers and more active physically.